


Project Alphastorm

by hobofaerie



Category: Homestuck
Genre: Alpha Session, Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Flushed Romance | Matesprits, Multi, Other Additional Tags to Be Added, Pale Romance | Moirallegiance, Weird Time Shit
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2012-12-11
Updated: 2012-12-23
Packaged: 2017-11-20 21:08:08
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 2
Words: 3,394
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/589649
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/hobofaerie/pseuds/hobofaerie
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Or</p><p>In which a group of time-displaced travelers must battle unearthly forces of a dubious moral nature, set right what once went wrong, save their planet, and in the end, most importantly, attempt to <i>survive</i>.</p><p>(That last piece is a forgone failure, but their efforts will pave the way for four others.)</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. How We Got Here

She smells of dust and dirt and ozone, a smudged face with a mouth set in a grim line as she holds her plasma rifle steady. Your conversations used to be casual, a whole load of banter and bullshit and gushing (on her end), but all you have now is careful talk of rations and terse, short orders that you obey because you’re forever a Knight in her eyes.

You don’t want to remember how it turned out like this, but at least you’re not alone.

\----

There was hardly any warning, in the beginning. Nothing but the slow stiffening of John’s back and Jade’s darting eyes as she gripped her flintlock rifle; old technology for a new world that came back so, so wrong.

“Storm coming,” John whispers, the laughter draining from his face, and it hurts him to be afraid, you know. Storms come often, these days, but there’s no joy to be had in their wind and rain and booming thunder.

Terror and elation fight for dominance in his expression. John is still tied to the weather, because at least the Game hadn’t completely stolen your elements quite yet, but you think that it might be worse, this way. Storms are the worst omen of this new world. Every house, every building – a building doesn’t get approved if it isn’t covered in lightening rods, and Jade hadn’t even known where she _was_ when she’d manifested, her old room moved underground and as far away from the sky as possible.

The creatures that live in the lightening had seen to that.

 

John shivers when the storms get too bad, thunder shaking the foundations of Rose’s house where you’ve all gathered. To be honest, she doesn’t have any more of a clue about the situation than the rest of you, but her house is big and empty, and most of all – _isolated_. Rose was the one to gather the four of you together, separated after the Scratch and Sburb had deposited you back home, and you think that she might be too morbidly excited about all of this. Oh, it’s not like she wanted this any more than the rest of you, but the soft flicker of the dozens of candles that she lights the rooms with seem to calm her down, like the click clack of knitting needles or the smell of an old book. She’s in her element, here.

Yeah, your ectosister might be dealing, but John, on the other hand…

“Dave, I _hate_ this.”

“I know, man. I know.”

You _do_ know, and that probably just makes this worse, because there’s nothing you can do to help when the one thing that defined you throughout the game – no, screw that, your entire _life_ – is utterly useless, wrapped up tight in its little red box. You can’t move through time anymore, just like how John can’t fly around and do windy things, and it’s like part of you is just fundamentally _missing._ All you can feel are the seconds as they tick by, flipping back and forth with unnatural clarity, and there are things that you don’t want to remember but there’s nothing you can do to _stop._

\----

You were dropped, battered and bloody but full of a triumphant euphoria at finally being _done_ with all of this shit, back on Earth in the same place where you’d left off. Back to the same old apartment, the floor a mess of old takeout boxes and electrical cords and the unnervingly ever-present layers of puppet ass, except for how it _wasn’t_.

It wasn’t the same apartment you’d known, because the view from the window was all wrong, and the electrical cords were a sickly glowing _red_ , and none of the computers looked the same. You couldn’t even tell if the sphere on your brother’s desk was _meant_ to be a computer – it didn’t look like anything you’d seen before - and when you tried to use your phone none of the usual connection icons lit up. Instead, it gave off a threatening hum when you touched the screen, like something _alive_ , and you let out a surprised _fuck_ when it sparked in your hand, dropping from your numb fingers to crack apart on the floor.

Your sword was in your other hand before you could think to do anything else, blade steady and trained on the phone, and you silently thanked Bro for forcing you to learn to wield with both hands. You’d be pretty fucking helpless otherwise, you’d thought, and then you’d watched the battery case crack open under the multiple glowing limbs of some kind of _electric_ fucking _spider_.

Actually, you’d realized, with a heavy sinking feeling in your gut, you might be helpless either way.

(And speaking of Bro, where the hell _was_ he?)

There was a cupboard in the kitchen that your brother kept free of swords, instead keeping rat poison and Raid in bulk quantities – he couldn’t take any chances with his equipment getting gnawed or shat on, after all, and that was okay. It wasn’t like you wanted cockroaches in your Doritos, so you were pretty fucking mellow about losing yet another possible storage space for food.

But now it had an addition: translucent half-glass orbs and crystals that were clear as ice, all in a box labeled simply, ‘Wisp-Traps’. You didn’t know what the hell it meant, but you’d pulled one out of the box and lobbed it like a Pokéball towards the little monster. It definitely worked – its little arms waved and flailed madly as it was pulled into the depths of the sphere, and you wondered idly if Rose could use it for her weird magic.

And that was when it hit you.

Something was _missing_.

You ran to your bedroom, toes tangling in cords and half-collapsing against the frame of your doorway before you reached the weird computer-that-wasn’t-a-computer on your desk. You’d looked at the clocks scattered about your room; saw them ticking out of sync with each other, and you.

You felt _afraid_.

Scrambling for the device on your desk, you hit a button and it powered on, showing flickering holograms of all your normal programs (as well as something called… BettyBother? Whatever, you had no fucking idea). Hesitantly, you’d tapped the Pesterchum icon hovering in midair, and you’d slumped against the chair in relief when you saw John’s handle there, yellow and online and ohthank _jesus._

\-- turntechGodhead [TG]  began pestering  ectoBiologist EB] \--

TG:  john

TG:  john are you there

TG:  cmon man theres something really fucking wrong going down

TG:  like worse than waking up to a faceful of cal in the morning

TG:  puppet bits flying everywhere bro shouting louder than the fucking stereo

TG:  i dont wanna have to learn to sew to stop it again once was enough

TG:  and i dont even know where bro is man

And then, of course, _that_ was when John’s handle flickered and went dim.

\-- ectoBiologist [EB] is an idle chum! --

TG:  no

TG:  john

TG:  john please man

TG:  get your ass online

TG:  i dont know what to do

TG:  everything is fucked up and i think i might be underground

TG:  cant hear any of those asshole birds cawing away and the light is all dark

TG:  shit what time is it even

TG:  oh right yeah thats the other criminal issue weighing down here

TG:  i dont know what went down since we rematerialized on whatever bizarro earth this is but

TG:  i cant feel time

\-- ectoBiologist [EB] is no longer idle! --

EB:  dave???

EB:  i

\-- ectoBiologist's [EB'S]  computer exploded! --

And that was about the time when you started _really_ freaking out.

\----

 _After the game, after the game_ , that was all that you could think back then, imagining half-guiltily a life without all this monumental _bullshit_. It was simple enough, in theory. Scratch the session, bring around a new world – what could _possibly_ go wrong?

But theory’s a piece of shit, because how could you _honestly_ ever think that? Nothing is simple when it comes to this fucking game, and the Scratch isn’t like flicking the switch on your Gameboy when you lose against Whitney’s Miltank. There aren’t any save points – this is a _total_ reset.

Things went right back to hell when the god pajamas came off, and you can’t help thinking that you fucked up yet _again_. Or maybe the game never ended – maybe it never ends, because winning it hadn’t seemed to make life any better for the trolls, after all.

It’s like a fucking mobius loop, all twists and fucking turns that all flow back into the beginning.

You’d figured it out, though, in the end.

You kind of really wish you _hadn’t_.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Since I want to keep certain things under wraps right now, some characters/pairings will be added as I go. Same with the rating - things might change a bit over the course of the story.


	2. Chapter 2

You try to draw the first breath of the new world, but you choke and it comes out as a half muffled _scream_.

Dark. It’s dark, and you’re _alone_ , and there are _no windows no air locked in oh god oh god oh god_

“Bec!” you call in your panic, but Bec doesn’t come _because Bec was a part of you_

_part of her_

_part of_

headache splitting you between all the people inside you and it wasn’t like this before but now you’re trapped trapped _trapped._

You curl in on yourself, shivering and clutching your ears – the _real_ ones, the normal ones, because the dog ears are gone –

_Bec is gone_

– as you try to shut out the voices. You want to scream again; to throw up and claw your way out to air and light and space and time that has _meaning_ instead of this dark airless room.

You lurch forward and find a wall that you can’t see, and you brace yourself against it as you try to feel your way along. You’re on top of something soft, but your knees

_why are your knees bare_

slip and you tumble to the ground, banging your elbow but nothing else (you don’t think). You feel out for the wall again, and stand, shuffling along, closer to the smooth plaster than before. Your toe brushes something furry and you hold back a squeak, and then your fingers touch something cold and plastic that feels suspiciously like a switch. You flick it without thinking.

Light floods your vision, and you squint as your eyes adjust. You can’t be sure, but you think you might be looking at…

Your room?

The tightening in your chest lessens as familiar surroundings come into view – your bed, that was your _bed_ that you’d stumbled off of, and one of your Manthro dolls that you’d kicked, and and and

The headache begins to lessen, the voices tapering off. You’re okay. Everything is…

Okay.

Your room is different from how you remember it, though – not a _lot_ different, but your flowerpots are gone and most of the really cool technology you had going on is different. Your awesome bass is just a normal guitar, now (you guess since you don’t have a dreamself, or a dreambot to use it), and your Wardrobifier’s just a normal closet. You peer inside and there are shirts and skirts and a few pairs of shorts, but nothing fancy or special like what used to be there. An old copy of _The Chronicles of Narnia_ lies on the floor, but there’s no magic portal and you guess that would be too easy, wouldn’t it.

The windows are sealed up, and you don’t know _why_. Your room isn’t exploded anymore, which is definitely positive, but you’ve never kept the windows closed, let alone bolted shut like this! You _need_ to feel the breeze – it’s probably why you started freaking out, back there.  
You worry at your lower lip with your teeth, wondering just what’s going on, as you walk towards the stairs-

Oh. No, wait, the stairs aren’t there. Instead, there’s a little door on the wall opposite your bed, which you guess is the way out.

It’s _weird_ , having a semi-normal room.

Through the door and down a short hallway is your transportalizer, and you make your way to the foyer after several teleportations (and it’s kind of weird, because all the rooms seem to be going in the opposite order – are you going _up_?). The front door is there, tall and imposing, and you check your specibus – yep, your gun is there! – before creaking open the heavy door and walking outside.

Only to see a huge white crab-monster standing right in front of you.

Your eyes widen, and you shoot at it before you can really give it any thought. Your hands are trembling and your shot goes wide, but it seems to do the trick anyway. The crab screeches at you and skitters off, but your mind has gone blank. All you can really think is just.

What.

You can’t even manage a question mark or a shoutpole for that whats. You seriously have _no idea what just happened_.

You’ve had dreams before – _normal_ person dreams, where the world’s slightly off and you can’t put a finger on why until you wake up. This isn’t like that, though, because your elbow still aches and everything just... _feels_ real. Sharp and bright and _new,_ maybe, but you _did_ just reboot your entire universe, didn’t you? Set up to help a better session, maybe, but you look and see a giant white dragon perched on your volcano and _since when are there monsters on your island?_

Then again, you think as you turn and your eyes go up up up to see nothing where there used to be your big lovely tower, your house didn’t stop at the first floor the last time you’d seen it, either.

Wandering back inside in a daze, you slump onto the nearest couch and pull out your lunchtop. You miss your cool spectogoggles, but you don’t think you can really expect those to have stuck around, so your fun squiddle computer will have to do!

Step one: Figure out what everyone else is doing. They have to be confused too, right? If your island’s changed around enough like this, what could’ve happened to them when they’d woken up?

Step one kind of flies out the window when your computer boots up, though. The holograms flicker about your head in the way they’ve always done (though you don’t think you’ve ever seen a few of these programs before), but you don’t even get to load Pesterchum before noticing one big issue.

The large NO SIGNAL symbol blinks at the bottom of the projection.

That means… you don’t have internet access. You’ve _never_ been without _some_ kind of internet access; but now you can’t access Pesterchum, and it isn’t like you have any _other_ ways to get in touch with your friends.

This day just fucking _sucks._

You stare at the wall, with its two-toned fireplace and large variety of skulls, and sigh.

Your name is Jade Harley, and you’ve never felt this alone.

\----

 _Three days_ , and you already feel like you’re going crazy. There’s no sound – dead silent beneath the earth, and you’d emerged yesterday to see a flat landscape that hardly resembled the city you knew. A  sea of low buildings, hardly higher than three stories, if that, and all fitted with a bristle of lightning rods and strange bronze instruments that you couldn’t name if you tried.

It was fucking _freaky_ , and you’d ducked back underground as fast as you could. Even if the apartment _sounded_ wrong, at least it was familiar.

But you don’t know what to do. Not now, not with radio silence on John’s end and no word from Rose or Jade at all. You don’t have much money – your bro either never wrote down his passwords or the money doesn’t _exist_ anymore – and you never really had any food in the first place.

You’re going out of your mind, because is this really your life? You were a knight in a game of universes; now you’re reduced to a starving kid in a confusing parallel not-version of your previous life.

The clock on your brother’s desk is ticking out of sync, and there is _nothing you can do about it_.

The silence is broken by a shrill ringing, and.

Holy shit, that phone still _works_?  
You run to the kitchen, shoes skidding on cracked linoleum, and practically crash into the refrigerator in your haste to pull the phone from the cradle. And your voice comes out possibly a little _too_ desperate when you answer, “Who-?”

“Dave? What’s going on?”

“ _Rose_? How-?” You clutch at the cold plastic, painted pink and covered in Hello Kitty stickers in Bro’s ironic way. The phone is an old landline, one that you’d gotten disconnected when you were nine because it wasn’t like anyone called except for telemarketers. Easier, when you’d both had cell phones and Bro would keep odd hours but he’d always answer and.

Funny, how the little changes hit the hardest.

“How did I get your number?” she asks. You can practically _hear_ the eyeroll. “I looked it up. There still exist things like ‘phonebooks’, you know. It wasn’t especially difficult, even if I had to do a bit of outsourcing.”

You twine the cord around your finger nervously, like a girl talking on the phone to her first prom date. “John?” you ask tentatively, almost scared to hear the answer (and silently discarding that metaphor, because seriously, _what_?)

“He’s fine,” she says after a pause. “His computer malfunctioned – apparently his hard drive was formatted with an, and I quote, “anti-Crocker piece of propaganda”. It detonated at his first attempt at communication. But he seems to be unharmed, from what he’s said.”

You let out a breath, slumping against the refrigerator in relief. “Okay, that makes way less than sense, but good. Good that he’s not dead from his own stupidity again. Jade?”

“I haven’t heard from her,” and your stomach drops “but I wouldn’t worry. She’s quite capable, remember?”

Your laugh is strangled, and you probably sound as crazy as you’ve been feeling all day, but if Rose notices she doesn’t comment.

“Yeah, _that’s_ for fucking sure.”

The telephone cord is stretching from its coil as you worry it, twitching and freaked and not sure what you _do_ in a situation like this. “So, Lalonde. Got a master plan you’re going to reveal any time soon? ‘Cause no lie, I could _really_ use one about now.”

“As a matter of fact,” comes her voice, muffled by what sounds like rustling paper being shifted,” I do. John is currently on a bus to New York; I suggest you do the same. We should regroup if we want any chance of figuring the current situation out, and while my house might not be the most… _conveniently_ located, it is, at the very least, well stocked.”

“With booze, maybe,” you say under your breath.

“With all manner of non-perishables, actually. It’s rather surprising; I wonder if my mother was expecting another World War?”

“Your mom is… _there_ , then?” you ask, and hate the way your voice sounds. Desperate. _Hopeful_.

There’s a pause, and then Rose says, “No. But the house remains the same, excluding a few superficial differences.”

“Oh.”

“Dave, have you been eating? You never had much in the way of food…”

Your silence is enough of an answer for her.

“Get here as quickly as you can, okay?”

“I uh. I don’t think I can aff-”

“I’ll take care of it. Go to the nearest bus terminal and call me from there; I’ll sort the details.”

You slide down against the fridge, magnets and papers sliding and bunching along in your wake. “Okay,” you say softly, and try to stave off the beginnings of a migraine.

“I’ll see you and John in a few days, and with any luck, we’ll hear from Jade before then.”

“Yeah,” you say, and let the receiver fall the floor, a dull deadline beeping replacing Rose’s voice. After a few moments of staring at nothing, you push yourself up, return the phone to its cradle, and gather your shit.

You’ve got a bus to catch.

(You get halfway out the door before you realize that you don’t have a fucking clue what Rose’s number is. One *69 and a bit of derisive laughter later, you stalk out the door, ten digits on a scrap of paper in your pocket.)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm still a little displeased with bits of Jade's section, but I figured if I kept staring at it I'd _never_ get it done.


End file.
